5 Star Featured Athlete: Tandy Meyers

The tail on Tandy Meyer’s horse went viral after Rodeo Houston.
Not in a bad way, but in a good way.
The Sallisaw, Oklahoma cowgirl’s barrel horse has a very long, beautiful, gray and white tail, and as she ran out of the arena after her run in Houston, Impulse Photography caught a shot of the tail streaming behind the horse.
Tandy has been running barrels since she was a kid, growing up the daughter of Gary Jacobs and Nita Jacobs.
She and her partner Doug Chaney have a 28-stall barn, all of them full of colts and young horses, and they ride and train.
Tandy is a 5 Star Equine Products customer who loves what their products do for her horses.
She got hooked on 5 Star saddle pads through the famous-tailed horse, Beep.
With Beep, she’d have to keep tightening the cinch and scooting the saddle up because the pad didn’t fit well. But at an event in Topeka, a friend had a 5 Star saddle pad and let her borrow it.
“When I put the saddle on,” Tandy said, “it was almost like you could hear it suck down on his back. I was sold. The saddle didn’t move.”
She loves the pads because they’re easy to clean, and durable. With Beep, she uses the normal style of pad, but she also likes the cutback ones for high withered horses, “because the saddle sits up so much better and they seem more comfortable.”
Tandy uses the 5 Star boots, too. “They’re durable and lightweight, and not a lot of dirt gets in.” She notices that when she takes them off, even if her horses have run in deep, heavy ground, their legs are clean.
Beep, whose registered name is Streakin Dusty Light, has taken her and Doug’s program in a different direction.
Because of him, Tandy bought her WPRA permit, filled it, got her card, and went to the WPRA Finals in Waco for the first time last year, at age 53.
“He’s just been a blessing,” she said. “He’s opened up other doors for us.”
He came to them as a two-year-old and they began training him for his owner. But after seeing his potential, they purchased him.
Beep started and trained easy, but he was spooky. “He wasn’t the best futurity horse,” Tandy said. “He let his surroundings bother him.”
Tandy took him to amateur rodeos, where he calmed down.
“The rodeos didn’t bother him. Once I took him to a couple of rodeos, he got settled in and was competitive everywhere.”
Beep isn’t scared, just spooks easily, although he’s gotten much better, Tandy said. “Around the farm, if he gets spooked, it’s because something is there that wasn’t there the day before.”
His beautiful tail came to be known by the rodeo world in Houston with the photo. “It’s so long, I trim it two or three inches every two weeks, and it still lays on the ground,” she said. The top half is gray and the bottom half is white, and usually Tandy braids it. For her first run, it was braided. The next night, the braid was fully loosened. The picture “is unbelievable,” she said. “He’s running in full stride, and his tail is flowing out behind him. It’s beautiful.” Clients of hers bought the picture, had it put on a canvas and it hangs over her couch.
It takes a team to keep things running at their farm. Her partner Doug Chaney, her daughter Mia Meyers, and their helper Kinsley Sweptson all work together. “We have a good team.”
Last year, Tandy finished fourth in the barrel racing average at the WPRA World Finals and third at the Senior World, both times aboard Beep. This year, he was second at the Barrel Bash in Guthrie, Okla., one of only two horses who made fifteen second runs.